I suggest to use https://www.bountysource.comto be able to put a bounty on implementation of some particular feature For example I wish there was some good way to manage laggers in big team games, instead playing on 0.5 speed and trying to do !votekick Or I want unit morphs back and wish to send some money for this feature, I guess someone else would join ;) What do you think, guys?
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we need to make this possible 
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quote:
For example I wish there was some good way to manage laggers in big team games, instead playing on 0.5 speed and trying to do !votekick |
/SpeedControl (unsynced) Sets how server adjusts speed according to player's load (CPU), 1: use average, 2: use highest, Where's my money? quote:
Or I want unit morphs back and wish to send some money for this feature, I guess someone else would join ;) |
Would one or two units that are designed around morphing from ground up be sufficient?
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There were some people working on morph to get it into a fit state to be brought back, mostly Sprung and Klon iirc. I'm not sure how far the project got.
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I'm torn here, because I agree that it would be nice to buy some features, but I think this is qualitatively different than the current donation system. IIRC bountysource awards go directly to the person who claims them, whereas in the current system donations go into the pool to pay for server costs. Also, bountysource works best for large projects, where there are potentially many sponsors able to contribute to the pool. I have a hard time imagining a single person funding the development of any significant feature at a fair pay rate. At least not to a level that would motivate someone to fix a bug they otherwise wouldn't. I think the current system of pouring our affection (and occasional dollars) over the game and developers is stronger motivation than the 5$/hour pay rate that comes out of things like this. People don't get into open source for the money :)
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well, maybe you're right    kaenI just thought it could give additional motivation to solve some issue/add feature if this has a bounty assigned to it :)
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Well, on second thought maybe you're right Firepluk. I mean it wouldn't hurt to try, and having the bounties advertised on bountysource might even bring new contributors. I'd be interested to hear what the devs think anyway.
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I think that this system is great, it could increase motivation for donating, if people knew what is it for. Donation to server could be first goal, and when fulfilled, all the other things could appear. With this system, maybe we could even hire a real graphic artist to help shape the lobby :)
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Bountysource has problems. 1) There's no lossless refund. Whenever and whyever you retrieve money from the system, you are taxed. This includes the cases where a developer has not delivered and the one where a bounty threshold was not reached in time. 2) It is vulnerable to trolling. All contributors to a bounty get veto rights on releasing that bounty. Consequently, i can donate $1 to Save The Universe From Chthulhu Project, and when Chthulhu comes i can demand that none of the developers of STUFCP get paid for their work on countering Chthulhu.
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3) It can easily mess up incentives to proper design. Case in point: Morph. While that is being worked on in the background to have a better design, it was a very sloppy design, and its removal tightens up the game. To have people throwing in cash to pull the design every which way would end up screwing up the design motivations. The current devs probably care more about proper design than whatever money bountysource brings in, but if it brings in new devs who start flooding github with poorly thought-out PRs, then that either leads to the core team seeming like a bunch of assholes that no one wants to work with, or with the core team giving in or getting fed up and leaving the mercernary devs with the game. Money changes everything. As for morph, it was kinda cool, and I could see it working as a mechanic for specific units, or if we feel a need to increase factory differentiation by making it a factory theme. However, it doesn't work as a universal mechanic, mostly because it can't be in the way that something like reclaim or radar is, as every unit that morphs needs a carefully designed morph tree, rather than just a single script run by a new button or passively.
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I just want to add that we on SpringRTS have been looking into creating a bounty system for funding engine development. So far we have agreed that bountysource is not an option because of the reasons Anarchid mentioned, but I'm beginning to think that even though it has a tax (issue 1.), it is still a better option than nothing. Regarding issue 3, I don't think bounties should ever be used for coercing design.
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im from a rich Russian Oligarchy. I am willing to donate 500, 000 Euros because I was not breastfed as a child. I wish for units to be created that have the face of Ken Dod and play music from Justin Beiber while being all powerfull and destroying everything else in the game. Please give me your bank account details.
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It's worth pointing out that engine development (as with any low-level and utility software development effort) is something that should generally try to please as many clients as it can, since the cost is code bloat the tradeoff is in the implementation details. It works a lot better for bounty-based development than game development does, as saying "no" is less necessary to keep a good overall product. I really hope a solution is found sooner rather than later.   gajop: For reference, I'm know you know this from your post, it's for anyone who might try clever sophistries.
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I think we should seriously think about paying our workhorse developers so they can feed themselves and keep working on Zero-K. Licho in particular, if he ever needs to chose between working more and developing Zero-K, I will personally throw money at him so he spends more time on Zero-K. Truth is though, I'm not sure how much this is an incentive, if it could ever be enough to make that worthwhile. That's their call to make, personally I don't care about money. The server seems pretty paid up, and once that happened donations slowed down. I don't think we should earnmark donations to specific goals, as our developers are already tireless workers who could not possibly be paid back for all the work they've done. But I think they can work as an incentive to donate and for donators to declare their interest in a specific feature we would consider working towards.   Normthegorm Deal. For 500,000 euros I will personally make and implement that unit. It will cost 1 million metal and be an unlockable unit you have to donate to use.
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   Saktothtried that method 1 year ago, all in shamble. got about 540 USD pledged for single player campaign. not gone anywhere. and don't quote me on this but IIRC, someone on the Dev took it poorly on the idea of incentive development the problem was how to divide the money and who to supervise and ensure transparency, IIRC. But who know, maybe it will work this time,
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quote:
got about 540 USD pledged for single player campaign.
not gone anywhere. |
I wouldn't say that.
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Perhaps he means that the 540 USD is unrelated to any current campaign progress.
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Well considering the whole campaign thing: There are no saves... Ability to save player's progress is the utmost important feature in singleplayer games, yet Spring lacks this functionality.
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